Apple CEO Tim Cook finally offered a timeframe for when the company's smartwatch will hit retail, revealing that the Apple Watch will ship in April.
The Apple Watch is the company's very first smartwatch, and is also the first major new product Apple has announced in years. The wearable gadget made its official debut back in September, but it was left without a specific launch timeframe up until now. At the time, Apple simply said it will release its Watch in "early 2015."
During a company earnings call on Tuesday, Jan. 27, Apple CEO Tim Cook finally revealed that the Apple Watch is scheduled to ship in April, Bloomberg reports.
The Apple Watch will come in two sizes and three styles - classic, sports, and gold edition - and will need pairing with an iPhone. The gadget has a rectangular form factor with a touchscreen watch face, and will allow for navigation through a dial on the side. The device will also come with the smartwatch functionality we've come to expect from such wearables, and will include various sensors to detect a pulse rate or other fitness and health-related info such as calories burned. The basic version of the Apple Watch will retail for $349, but Apple has yet to offer exact pricing details for all models.
As previously mentioned, the Apple Watch is the company's first major new product in a long time. More specifically, the smartwatch marks the first new product category since the iPad made its debut back in 2010. With various smartwatches already available on the market, it was about time Apple announced the availability of its own wearable.
As expected from a companion smartwatch, the Apple Watch will extend the functions of the device it's paired with and allow users to check incoming calls, text messages, songs playing, and others such, straight from their wrist.
One sore point of wearable devices, however, lies in the battery department, and it remains to be seen whether the Apple Watch will be able to satisfy users with its battery performance. Apple has not given exact estimates for how long the smartwatch would last on a single charge, but a recent report claimed it would only last for roughly 2.5 hours with heavy application use. If this is the case, the Apple Watch may disappoint, and its steep price tag may also turn off prospective buyers.
